Do you chose what you believe?

In a more broader term it's the same as asking do you have free will.Which i think we don't.

Everything around us influences us, it's our choice on what we allow to influence us. It's simple as that.

Amba,Can you define personal choice?

No just define choice?

A choice is based upon a decision based upon perception we form when taking in information.

And what are they based on?

Based upon the perception of the information we are taking in.

Which is formed as we perceive the information.

How does it form? I should say..

Nvm i should just cut it short.It's the evolutionary track of the intertwining laws of nature that make the decision,not choice.

Perceptions form about something or someone when we develop our own personal meaning for the person, place, or thing in question by assessing what is right or wrong or if it is neutral. Perhaps, it may be something or someone you like or dislike based upon their reasoning (logic), intelligence, artistic ability, or even ability to communicate.

My point is if what we believe changes, then that means we choose what we believe..

If you can choose what you believe as you claim, why don't you choose to believe in the tooth fairy or the invisible pink unicorn? You can always choose not to believe in the afterwards after all.

And what I mean is what we believe, isn't based on choice but on our environment, education, genetic makeup, parents, etc etc etc.. They all rebound off each other to make what your reality is right now. I don't think there's room for any choice in the matter, literally because we all obey laws that can't be broken. There isn't freewill..

You are proving my point Blackbird. Based upon what is possible theoretically and factually we can determine what we believe in making it a choice. Also, explain to me why some atheist turn Christian without any outside influence?

What we believe in is definitely not based on education as there are many scientist who believe in God as doctors with Phds.

As far as parents go, many children do not look up to their parents and actually look elsewhere for guidance. This is based upon the average United States family.

Lastly, if our environment was an absolute influence in what we believe in, then NO ONE in the hood would never be able to make it out of the hood.

Or in other words, ghetto.

Haroush , people are born atheist (LACK of god) also many religions are contradictory. So what if their a phd...You're not comprehending what i'm saying,your beliefs is derived around what makes you who you are.It's called transmutation.The words that i'm saying are ambiguous and they intertwine with each other to make your reality.Free-will isn't part of thepuzzle of life.

So, how is our beliefs derived around what makes us who we are? @ Reece And where is your proof people are born atheist?

Can I just reason with you? Belief comes from what you perceive as reality and most of your reality derives from information that is external. Environment is an ambiguous word, e.G., family, Friends, gravity, country neighborhood, food etc. etc. etc.. They all help you form what makes you, you. Make sense? People are born atheist because it literally means lack of god/god and infants can't comprehend the idea of a god, it's until they're old enough to get indoctrinated/taught it.

God/god's*

Well, I don't think you can reason with me since we both have two very unique logical standpoints, but what we can do is agree to disagree. This being said, I'll accept that as your last and my comment from before hand was my last. I do believe we can agree on what I just said. Affirmative?

I can reason if you come up with a better argument that shoots down my claims.If not,i don't consider you rational sorry. I've only seen you from a narrow standpoint.

Unless you could change your beliefs and start believing in the Invisible Pink Unicorn how is that proving your point? If you said that because of the last bit ('You can always choose not to believe in the afterwards after all.') it isn't supposed be read in support, it was supposed to stop you being able to say something like 'the invisible pink unicorn isn't real, why would I believe in it?' and the line was supposed to make you think about if you could change your beliefs in the first place. As to the point about atheists becoming Christian with no 'outside influence'. Firstly, every atheist I've ever encountered has used lack of evidence for God as a reason they don't believe. Why would an atheist choose to believe in god if they thought this god's existence wasn't supported by evidence? This doesn't make sense. Beliefs change gradually over time (a phrase similar to this is used in a majority of people telling of their conversions to another religion) , suggesting what we believe in is sub conscience and based on evidence presented to us otherwise change would be sudden. Therefore they would have had outside influence from other people. In fact, I can't find any examples of atheist converting to Christianity without outside influence. Every account has included a Christian converting them.

See, this is the reason there is no respect between atheist and religious people. It's because atheist don't know how to give any respect to those who are religious in the first place. Therefore, we will never be able to respect each other and I'll never respect you or any other atheist unless they are in fact.. Rational themselves.

Honestly, this is really sad. We were having a great civilized debate, but then you just can't accept I have a different logical standpoint on this issue, which is sad. It shows how intolerant you are Reece.

Again i apologies. I didn't really consider it a debate..But rather a conversation.Just to run out of the topic like that without a conclusion is disrespectful to me..] it would work if we were both rational.

Conclusion we both agree on*

Haroush, you are limiting your concept of belief to just religion. Pretty much everything is a belief. I believe the sky is blue. That belief is based off of observations. Visual input. If I could choose to believe in a god, I would. It would increase my chances of reaching a pleasant afterlife. Even if the probability rose only .00001%, I would still choose that belief. However, I can't. I can't bring myself to TRULY believe something that I actually don't. Do you think that you could TRULY stop believing in your god if you wanted to? Or would you believe in him in the back of your head even if you outwardly denied it, even to yourself?

Of course I could truly not believe in my G-d anymore if I chose to.

I could choose to accept possibilities or just accept straight facts which aren't necessarily true, but true to our own human mental capacity.

You have displayed free-will/choice if you just turn it off like switch.If not,that isn't choice...

Because there is always a mechanism that drives your actions..

The problem with your argument is you think your argument is absolute when we are talking about a topic under the category of philosophy. Therefore, philosophical views don't necessarily have to be certain way to be correct. Meaning, there is always two sides to a coin.

I'm waiting for your side of the coin?

I did say "I can reason if you come up with a better argument that shoots down my claims"

For example, the only reason scientist believe our earth is is 4.54 billion years old is because of the oldest asteroid they found in the asteroid belt. The point is how do they know it came from the earth? How do they know how old it is? There is a lot of problems with your philosophical view. All this is your observation that is it, not fact.

What? Where are you getting your information from lol here is how we know http://earthsky.org/earth/how-old-is-the-earth

I can proof that evaluation is real :P

You just proved my point... "Also, because Earth formed as part of our sun’s family of planets – our solar system – scientists use radiometric dating to determine the ages of extraterrestrial objects, such as meteorites. These are space rocks that once orbited our sun, but later entered Earth’s atmosphere and struck our world’s surface. Likewise, scientists use radiometric dating to determine the ages of moon rocks, obtained by astronauts. Taken together, these methods give results that SUGGESTS an age for our Earth, meteorites, the moon – and by inference our entire solar system – of 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old." Therefore these are observations which aren't necessarily CONCRETE FACTS. So, yeah.

The best thing in science is a scientific theory so of course... We don't claim to know everything about the universe unlike a religion. That's why humanity becomes more moral, intelligent, tolerant.. Successful because we open up to new ideas. Would you consider this as fact realhttp: //youtu. Be/LzlUZrt0Ums even though it's observational evidence?

I mean this.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzlUZrt0Ums